Watch List notes:

JDL Collection Part II: Roman Coins
THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

VESPASIAN, end August 69 –June 23, 79.

Sestertius, Rome, 71, Æ 24.05 g.
Obv. IMP CAES VESPAS AVG P M TR P P P COS III
His laureate head right; border of dots.
Rev. FO-RTVNA-E REDVCI / S C Fortuna standing left, hol- ding olive-branch and rudder set on globe in right hand and cornucopiae in left; border of dots.
Literature
Cohen - cf. 187–189 (different legend on obverse) BMC RE II, 114, 529
RIC II2, 75, 230
BN 484
M.-M. Bendenoun, Coins of the Ancient World, A portrait of the JDL Collection, Tradart, Genève, 2009, 54 (this coin)
Condition
A lovely portrait and a wonderful enamel-like green patina. Extremely fine / about extremely fine.

Provenance
Bank Leu AG 50, Zürich 1990, lot 290.
Both historians and citizens openly criticised Vespasian – the son of a man who made a fortune as a tax collector in Asia, and later as a Swiss banker – for his stinginess, but this proved to be an essential quality for an emperor in his troubled times. Suetonius (Vesp 16.3) reports that Vespasian claimed he needed 400 million aurei (10 billion denarii) to "...put the country back on its feet again". As a result of his close attention to finance, Vespasian struck aurei, denarii and sestertii in large quantities, and unlike most of his predecessors, he employed
a wide variety of reverse types. For generations researchers have recognized that many of Vespasian's reverse types recall types from earlier reigns, most especially those from the age of Augustus. Attempts have been made to connect his 'Augustan' types with the centenaries of the Battle of Actium (ending in 70) and the 'foundation' of the empire (ending in 74), but all seem to have failed, as the relevant types are strewn throughout Ves- pasian's ten-year reign. It is perhaps better to view his recycling of types as a political strategy favoured by Vespasian and Titus, but subsequently abandoned by Domitian.